FLIGHT FESTIVAL WON'T BE HELD AT AIRPORT SLEEPY HOLLOW CEMETERY TRACT WILL BE SITE FOR SEPTEMBER EVENT

CHUCK AYERS, The Morning CallTHE MORNING CALL

The Quakertown Flight Festival will not alight as planned from the Quakertown Airport this year. Instead, the hundreds of colorful balloons and three days of festivities will be held on the grounds of the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Milford Township, hospital officials said last night.

At a meeting of the Milford Township Supervisors, a member of the Bucks County Airport Authority said the hospital chose the alternate site when the authority failed to meet an April 1 deadline.

The authority, operating the airport since last year, had been negotiating with the hospital to establish a fee for use of the facility, but a successful conclusion to negotiations was not reached, according to Authority vice chairman Robert Natali.

Natali said the authority had offered to close the airport for 2 1/2 days in the last week of September for the event. However, the stumbling block was that the authority wanted the Civil Air Patrol to participate in this year's event and be allowed to keep 60 percent of the proceeds from its sales, leaving 40 percent for the hospital.

Riger Hiser, chief executive officer of Quakertown Community Hospital, said that offer was rejected because it would have been unfair to the other organizations that donate all of their profits to the hospital.

"That's the bug. Everybody else donates 100 percent of their profits to the hospital. It came down to whether the Civil Air Patrol should contribute their services like everybody else. It's a question of fairness to the other service organizations," Hiser said.

Natali said the hospital had last offered to share 25 percent of the net gate with the authority. But, he said, after deducting the costs of producing the event, the most the authority would receive is $700 and the least, $200.

That, Natali said, would not be enough to cover the costs of providing electricity, water, security and repairing the grounds after the flight festival.

"The amount we estimated it would come to would not cover the costs the authority would incur. In past years, operators entered into an agreement and history shows that the operators generally . . . lost money," Natali said.

Hiser said the airport authority had initially asked for 25 percent of the gross proceeds from the three-day event - a figure rejected by the hospital as being too high, he said.

According to Hiser, Thomas Pileggi, the owner of the expansive Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, offered to allow the festival to take place on that property after he learned of the difficulties with the airport.

Natali said that the festival may not be held at the airport in future years, either.

Said Natali, "At this particular time, we do not want to make a commitment or incur expenses for a year-and-a-half into the future. At this particular time, I would say the 1988 Flight Festival is not in our plans.